What the Hell is the Deal with the Oakland County Child Killer Investigation?

Shaky Bill Shaffer

Ok, here are some really disturbing things about Bill Shaffer, the now 71-year-old licensed social worker and one-time employee of child protective services, who was arrested by the feds earlier this week on child porn charges. Bill was apparently on the “great customer” list of an international movie production company specializing in child porn. He lives in Birmingham, MI, where my brothers and I grew up.

Shaffer was a long-time Birmingham baseball coach/assistant even though he had no sons involved in the league. The kids called him “Shaky Shaffer” because he had some hand twitch thing going on all the time.

Shaffer was the guy who always took the Birmingham little league football and baseball team photos. All three of my brothers, including Tim, played little league baseball for years. Always ready with a camera while hanging around the ball field, according to both my brothers and another friend.

He was the assistant coach on an All-Star team my brother Chris played on when he was 15 or 16 (some 37 years ago). Shaffer would have been in his early 30’s back then. Chris told me this guy “knew all the players from every team on all levels—years and years on either side of me.”

His dad was an allergist in the B’ham area who treated my brother Mark. Yet another of Oakland County’s privileged offspring jerking off to pictures of little boys.

HE WAS TURNED IN AS A SUSPECT IN THE OCCK CASE after Tim was abducted and murdered. My Dad knows this because police questioned him about Shaffer a number of times. Did we know him and what was his deal? My brother Mark always thought this guy was a creep and mentioned him as a possible suspect numerous times back in the day.

He should be questioned about the OCCK crimes again, about connections with any of the Fox Island perps, about John Hastings (also a assistant B’ham baseball coach), Chris Busch, Greg Green (baseball coach in Flint area), Arch Sloan, Vince Gunnells, Ted Lamborgine, as well as any of the names of men who came up early and often in each of the four OCCK cases. Not saying he is the OCCK or has any direct knowledge, but birds of a feather and all of that.

Here is proof positive that when LE turns a blind eye to the sexual victimization of children that this most insidious of crimes continues unabated. It is perhaps the most vicious, insidious type of crime because it is most often committed by people who “fit in,” who are priests, social workers, principals, baseball coaches, Big Brothers, corporate officers, and other seemingly solid citizens. People who have used their brain-power to put themselves in situations so they can groom and victimize kids. Think it only happened back in the dark ages of the 1970’s? Think again. Every time the system ignores these crimes, by not believing the victim, by saying “oh, [the suspect] was such a good guy,” by failing to prosecute pedophiles and child porn distributors and users, the ripple effect is gigantic. It means more and more child victims who are given a life sentence while people like Bill Shaffer spend a lifetime getting off on victimizing kids or watching them be victimized.

The OCCK task force had to have talked to hundreds and hundreds of pedophiles during their investigations. How many career pedophiles were turned in but never prosecuted for anything? I bet the number is staggering. When you factor in how local and federal authorities also dropped the ball in the Fox Island, MI case from that same era, giving Frank Shelden and his buddies Grossman and Starchild plenty of time to escape justice, the victims who followed had to number in the many thousands.

To my knowledge, the only pedophiles whose names surfaced in these investigations and were actually prosecuted were Gerald Richards (Fox Island—and the only participant with no money to buy freedom) and Ted Lamborgine and Richard Lawson (prosecuted in the mid-2000’s by the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office). That’s three out of god-knows how many.

How many sickos like this are out there? Way, way too many.

The feds better be talking to shaky Bill about all of this. I’m glad you finally got busted, Bill. You got almost four decades to continue to victimize kids after your little chat with the OCCK task force. I hope the feds take the time to make these charges stick and put you where you belong so you can never victimize another kid. Better late than never? Not really. But your ass should still be in prison no matter how many years you have left.

Evidence that back in the 1970’s, active pedophiles in Oakland County tended to network with one another is persuasive. The question is–if this guy knows something about the murders of these four children, should he be offered a sentencing deal in exchange for what he knows?

What bothers me goes back to something I remember from when I first read about Ted Lamborgine: it was a news article about his refusal to take a lie detector test in connection with these murders that mentioned, only in passing, that he was involved with a child pornography ring that operated (if I remember correctly) out of the Cass Corridor. I was like–wait a minute–a child pornography RING? What the hell was going on up there in Michigan, anyway?

I went to Seaholm; I never had any nasty encounters with strange men in that part of the world, but I went to a boys summer camp up near Alpena for several years in the late 70’s, and I remember that the final summer I went there, it was an openly acknowledged among the campers that the “waterfront director” (the guy in charge of swimming activities–a guy who spent much of his day working with boys in swimsuits) used to absolutely dote on this one particular boy. It was only several years later that it dawned on my how completely wrong that particular camper-counselor relationship truly was, and kind of horrified me to suddenly consider what may have been happening behind closed doors. Yet even then, I viewed it not as pedophilia, but as homosexuality.

What did I know? What did anybody know? These days, it would seem that kids and parents are both programmed to be on the alert for that type of adult behavior, but back then…I don’t know how aware the average adult in the 1970’s was that this type of activity was occurring out there in the world, but it would be many more years of ever-accumulating recidivism statistics before society would finally give up on the notion that pedophila could be “cured”.

A child-pornography RING? I still have trouble fathoming that type of depravity organized at that type of level, as well as the amount of damage to a society that only a few individuals, like-minded in their evil, can inflict. How can a society attempt repair that damage when the local newspaper will only mention it in passing?

This is one of your very best posts. This guy needs to be grilled. Pedophiles constitute the biggest boys’ club of all time. They protect each other because each realizes they themselves need protection. I would bet heavy money that this guy knows a lot about who OCCK was.

I think the best thing would be for someone to do some detective work and make contact with the poor victims of this creep. After this many years they may talk and may have good memories. Bring young photos of John Hastings and the other players at that age of the OCCK crimes and see if the victims recognize anyone. Let them come out with the names if they can. Establish a detailed structured timeline of events, and names when possible which would include all the suspects and victims of these incidents. Hopefully find commonality among them between various victims’ memories. Hopefully find more main players along with more victims to find to question. Eventually maybe have the entire tree of names of suspects to establish some type of ground work. Maybe one will ring out to match DNA to Sloan’s car. With all of this information in hand after months of research then go grill this guy. This is just my opinion.

I was looking about and found the criminal complaint again Bill and was further horrified, he was the baseball coach for a lot of kids in fact generations of them, as well as his work in CPS and as a social worker with children. I also found he had a prior issue in Westland in 87′ accusing him of molestation of an 8 or 9 year old boy… I will add the links and the PDF of the criminal complaint out of the U.S District Court Eastern Division from this month.

I just heard about the charges against William Shaffer, who happens to live in my neighborhood. As a lifelong Birmingham resident (and Seaholm grad with your brother Mark), I vividly remember your brother Tim being taken from Hunter Maple pharmacy where all the local kids hung out. I have often thought of the lifelong pain this loss caused your family. Now, as the mother of 4 sons, I have my own concerns upon learning that this pervert lives just a couple blocks away. I can’t wait until this guy is convicted and sent away to rot in prison for whatever time he has left on this earth and, if he knows anything about what happened to those poor children taken in the ’70s, that he reveals it now to bring some sense of peace(?) to their families. Wonderful job with this blog!

We lived very near the Shaffers and my Dad knew dr. Shaffer as a collegue at Ford Hospital.
We would see this Bill coming down the street and he had a nervous hand figit that was disturbing. We instinctively brought our young boys in the house when he came walking down the street. A couple of us thought we spotted a blue gremlin parked on the steet outside of his house. The curtais were always drawn in their house, and it was rumoured that a frozen body of a dog was discovered in the Schaeffer garage.

I definitely have no sympathy what so ever for Bill Shaffer and his kind. As a retired CPS worker I have had first hand experience seeing LE give deals to these scum, only to allow them more freedom to destroy innocent lives. What could be worse than a person in Bill Shaffer’s position taking advantage of children? I know of an ex-fireman here in Big Rapids who’s wife was the city Treasurer for years who is sure to be abusing kids still because LE “didn’t see enough evidence” to prosecute him. These two people adopted young female girls who were already victims of sexual abuse. This made them easy targets to be abused again. Because when they reported being abused by this man, he would just say their past abuse was the reason they are now accusing him. And his wife still protects him in her sick perverse ways to this day. And they received adoption subsidy for years of thousands of dollars to care for, and abuse, these poor young girls. I was able to get the children removed and their license revoked, but neither spent any real time in jail for his “misdemeanor assault charge conviction” he was allowed to pled to. There is nothing worse. I am still sick over it to this day.

So, the ONLY deal that should be given Shaffer is to provide him free shelter, food and medical care in prison only if he provides good intelligence on other perps. If not, then into prison general population he should go to fend for himself.

The Oakland County Child Killer murdered both girls and boys. Pedophiles who assault boys would not go after boys AND girls. The news reports state that the pornography items found for this man contained only boys. It is highly unlikely he would be involved in the OCCK case….he does not match the profile of the killer.

Very true (if the Oakland County Child Killer worked alone) but there was a network of pedophiles who worked with others in abducting children, holding them captive, asphyxiating them, & then leaving their bodies in snowbanks on the roadside. Being a pedophile doesn’t make Bill Shaffer the OCCK, but being the pedophile who lived in Birmingham, who worked for the Child Protection Services, & having purchased over 200 dvd’s of boys (underage) running around naked does. Being that he was also an early “suspect” in the OCCK puts him right up there with all the rest of them.

Actually, there is no scientific evidence behind the concept of “birds of a feather….”. Not very interesting or useful if there is no basis in facts. No, they are not the same type. You may find insightful to read up on serial killers.

Katie, whatever your purpose in defending Bill Shaffer, I have a few things to say in response and will post accordingly. Frankly, Bill is too much of a pussy to have pulled off the OCCK murders, whatever his predilection. Does he have suspicions or information about who might have been involved? I don’t doubt it, given his address, his upbringing, the fucks he hung around with and his current attorney. He just got sentenced to 48 months for his child porn shit, but trust me, he got off easy (no pun intended). He lived his entire adult life, until his early 70’s, fucking boys and viewing child porn. Four years in the Big House? Fuck, that’s nothing!!! And, he doesn’t have to say a word about what was going on in Oakland County in the 1970’s with pedophiles and very, very wealthy, well-established men who were in fact pedophiles. You “got off” easy, Bill! You WAD!!

So, he is guilty, in part, because of where he lived and because he hired an attorney with experience defending people with these charges. Ok. And I’m interested (seriously, I would like to know) where you found the information about him engaging in these disgusting acts his entire adult life? I have not seen anything posted to support that. If this is your opinion, it is a good idea to say that.

Having grown up in an abusive situation myself, I have no problem with people being punished according to their crimes. However, it is important that we are using facts and not opinion or supposition or guilt by association, no matter how angry we might feel.

First, there have been over 200 people released from prison when DNA proved they were not guilty, with many of those being sex crimes. If I had been one of those witnesses that put someone in jail for years and I was wrong, I would feel just terrible.

Secondly, as someone reading your posts, the anger is very apparent and it is hard to garner support when it seems to focus on venting and opinions and not facts. If you are truly interested in solving this case, you may be able to get more attention and help by remaining motivated and focused, but trying to stick more to facts. Anger and venting only take you so far and may tend to “turn off” those who might help with the case.

Do you remember the Jon-Benet Ramsey case? Those folks were crucified by many for years, only to later be declared innocent of any involvement. Imagine losing your child like that, and living with accusation every where, for years and years.

In most cases where a person is accused like this, and if he was guilty of sexual activity for as many years as you suggested, usually people start coming out of the woodwork and telling the police “yes, he did this or that to me”. Forgive me if I am miss-stating the facts, but it seems like I read this guy was charged or something a year ago? Why didn’t anyone step up? Having supported initiatives against child abuse for many years, that is very common. Doesn’t mean there are not a lot of people out there, but usually at least some would come forward.

I assume he will be on the sex offender list the rest of his life, and you will probably be glad to know that, being in prison as a sex offender, he will be consider the lowest of the low. It is likely prison will not be the least bit easy for him, and perhaps he won’t even live through it.

Katie, he is guilty because he pleaded guilty. Most people who plead guilty, plea to far less than they did. I know whoever you are, you are not just someone interesting in forensic science. Nice try. You want to provoke a response by me or my readers. I will post all of the pleadings in Bill’s case and then you, as an abuse survivor, can determine whether or not he just developed an appetite for child porn late in life. Did you know he was turned in as a suspect in the OCCK case back in the day? Not only was his name turned in, my Dad and my brothers were asked about him. I’m angry, “Katie,” you are right about that. But I didn’t spend my entire life angry. I accepted everything that happened, including the failure to arrest a suspect. I, like my entire family, completely trusted the police–IN FACT FELT HORRIBLE FOR THEM THAT they did not “catch their man.” The police agencies basically begged my parents for that response and we all bought it for well over 30 years. As for me garnering support on my little blog that was started well after the police fucked us over? We are way past that, “Katie.” If that’s what it took, this case would have been solved in 1976 or 1977. People like you want to switch the focus, make it something nice and comfortable. Read Bill’s criminal complaint and the supporting documents and tell me how comfortable you feel after that, especially knowing that he pleaded guilty. Don’t you dare tell me what I “will be happy to know” anything you think I should know. Trust me, even if you truly are a survivor of sexual abuse, you have no idea, and I can tell that by the comments you have posted. You blaspheme sex abuse survivors with your comments. You are entirely off base. Whatever happens to Bill Shaffer is far less than he perpetrated on others. Read the criminal complaint and see if you agree. And anyone who watches child porn is a participant in what was done to the child. Message me privately if you want to continue the conversation.

Actually, I wasn’t defending anyone. Don’t even know the guy and I did not grow up in this area. I am just interested in forensic psychology and did not find the previous comments factual.

As to a “fidget” or “shaky hand”….having never seen this in person….only reading the descriptions…it could possibly be a medical condition. There are several that can cause such a symptom.

After reading all of the comments here, I did go and read everything I could find about this case and the company involved in Canada. I don’t see any charges, let alone convictions, for any sex crimes against children or anyone else by this guy, only pornography. I see one person filed a report, but seems significant that no charges were ever filed. It is not unusual for children in some situations to make false claims, so that is also a possibility. I guess only the child involved and the guy know for sure what did or did not happen. I hope I am never “convicted” in the public eye by what I have seen here. Not many facts involved.

When reading several of the comments, I got the impression of someone who was different and so people formed opinions, not based on any facts. Reminds me of the old lady in the house on the corner that everyone called a witch. If keeping your blinds shut is a crime, then you’ll have to punish me as I keep my blinds shut most of the time (it helps the house from getting colder or hotter, depending on the season).

I am very interested in facts that could lead to the resolution of the OCCK case. These posting, not based on any facts, do not help lead to that resolution.

“Birds of a Feather…” It’s meaning and that which I wanted to imply is “People with the same or similar tastes tend to congregate together.”

It was meant as a simple connection between Bill Shaffer and those who may be involved with the OCCK. No, I don’t know for fact if he had any connection. But I do believe his behaviors or profile characteristics are similar in ways to the type of person(s) capable of such evil acts. Sorry if you don’t find this ” very interesting or useful”. But I do agree with Cathy and find it useless for you to defend Bill Shaffer from having any connection to the purpose of this blog.

Katie, everything you speak of makes sense if it only applied to this blog. In order for your judgements (on this blog) to have a root (credibility), then you would need to read these blogs way back at the beginning (January 31st, 2013). Picking up at July 2 doesn’t do any justice to your statements or for this blog. This would have enabled you to at least know that there isn’t at all an interest in gaining support from people who are eager to be strung along in this investigation.

Several of you have used the term “defend” in your responses. It seems as if your definition of “defend” is anyone who has a perspective different from your own, or attempts to focus on facts instead of inflammatory rhetoric. It makes no difference to me who is right or guilty, as long as we focus on facts to arrive at that conclusion. I would think finding the truth would be the ONLY reason for having a blog on the subject.

How strange, Katie, that you would say just what we have been trying to convey to you. That we need to focus on a solution to a problem, which is the reason for this blog. Not focus or look for what you believe is incorrect or wrong in other’s opinions. Remember the goal, and try to avoid looking for what you think is less than perfect in other’s comments. And like you said, you didn’t know this guy or grow up in this area. How fortunate.

Please remember, Katie, that this is a blog where all comments have to be approved before getting posted. If Cathy was not interested in arriving at the truth, then I do not think that she would allow comments from people who think differently than she does, nor allow some of the irrational statements that are sometimes posted (even from me). Some of the comments had me needing a translator (in code) but I got through them. It is nice to have your own opinions & to be able to present them, & like I said before, justice would have been served if you would have taken the time and read these blogs from the beginning. Research is very similar to forensic psychology would imagine, in that an order has to be reached before making certain kinds of assessments.

Hello, Some creep tried to get me back in 77. He had two dogs, one was white German Shepherd. He chased me for about 10 minutes or so, by letting his dogs out of the car and they approached me in a swampy area of a field I was in. Totally creepy. I was shown years later a picture of John and Tom Hastings. Tom Hastings certainly looked like the same guy.
Wierd that for months before this my brothers and I kept finding satanic writings and small animal sacrifices in the same field. The next year I found a burned German Shepherd in a pentagram of small stones. I showed my brother. We couldn’t tell what color it was.
I talked to Chief Fox from Bloomfield Hills and he said the dog hairs were never tested for DNA that they found on two of the victims. Always wondered if I just encountered a random creep or if he was tied to the murders.
I have commented on some of these blogs before. I certailny hope someone finds this guy or these guys before they die, they should be punished and their protectors shamed.

My family knew Bill for 35 plus years. He coached my teams, my brothers teams and even spent many a Christmas and Thanksgiving in our house. Bill was definitely odd but he never once in all that time did or said anything inappropriate. He ultimately was a lonely man. I highly doubt he was the OCCK or even knew anything about the creeps surrounding this case. His problems with child porn were his own private issues. He would not have been part of a “ring.”

I agree with Cathy. How very fortunate nothing happened to you. But “private issues”, and not “part of a ‘ring’ “? I sense your compassion for this old family friend to avoid his being labeled a child abuser. But where is your compassion for the OCCK victims and those of Bill’s involvement in children’s abuse?